The field of invention is bearings, and more particularly, to a shaft mounted wedge-type bearing assembly.
It is generally known to mount bearing assemblies on a shaft through the use of set screws or eccentric collars which lock the inner ring of the bearing assembly to the shaft. In such designs, the inner ring of the bearing assembly extends longitudinally along the shaft and is incorporated in the mechanisms for sealing the inner ring against the shaft and for locking the bearing assembly on the shaft.
It is also known to provide a bearing assembly with an inner ring which has extending therethrough a tapered bore and which loosely surrounds the shaft. Such bearing assembly designs also include a cylindrical wedge or tapered mounting adapter sleeve that is also placed over the shaft. The sleeve has therein a longitudinally extending slit which allows the sleeve to be placed over the shaft but affords compression or squeezing the sleeve into frictional engagement with the shaft. The sleeve is typically pulled into engagement with the tapered bore in the inner ring of the bearing assembly by a lock nut axially fixed relative to the sleeve and threadably engaging the inner ring. Rotation of the nut around the sleeve draws the inner ring over the sleeve to produce a the wedge-like engagement between the tapered sleeve and the tapered bore. The wedge-like engagement creates an interference fit between the sleeve and the inner ring and compresses the sleeve into locked engagement with the shaft. The locked engagement between the inner ring and the sleeve, and between the sleeve and the shaft thereby fixes the inner ring relative to the shaft.
The use of a tapered sleeve in conjunction with a tapered inner ring to mount a bearing assembly on a shaft is advantageous in that this type of bearing assembly mounting accommodates shafts which may have a circumference differing from a nominal specified circumference. These wedge-type bearing assemblies, however, are difficult to mount on a shaft because the inner ring tends to rotate with the nut without moving the inner ring axially relative to the sleeve, the tightness of the nut is not easily determined which leads to over or under tightening, and axially fixing the nut relative to the sleeve is difficult. Therefore, a need exists for a shaft mounted wedge-type bearing assembly that overcomes one or more of these problems.